Travel Health - South Korea

There's nothing like traveling to remind you of all the potential health risks out there in the world. Looking at a list of vaccinations and global health problems sometimes causes me to panic. I get the urge to seal up my windows and doors, and stock up on hand sanitizer. Germs! Foreign germs! It's like being an alien from another planet, only to die from Earth's common cold.

I've been preparing myself for my travels, as much as I can. I'm still waiting on those personal force fields that regulate air quality and temperature, killing any dangerous substance that passes through it (why has no one invented this yet?), but in the meantime -- shots. Lots of them. I think I mentioned a while back that I was sore for days after getting up-to-date on my vaccinations. Last week, I got even more shots (yay) but at least they didn't make me sore.

If you're planning to travel to South Korea, I suggest checking this MD Travel Health site first. Also, the CDC website is very helpful.

I was planning on getting the Japanese Encephalitis vaccination before I go, but since I'm going before the high risk season I was advised to get it while in Korea. It's cheaper, and since there is no definite expiration date on how long it lasts, getting it closer to high risk season (starting May) is probably wise. If I'd gotten it here, I would have had to pay $200 or more. In Korea it's roughly $20. Supply and demand.

I'm also planning to get my rabies vaccine there, maybe. It's not likely that I'll cuddle up to any wild animals, but...

I went to a travel medicine clinic to get the second batch of vaccinations for my travels. They didn't take insurance, which it seems most travel clinics in my area don't. They can give you a receipt, which you then submit to your insurance to see if they will reimburse you, but you pay it all up front.

If you have any questions that I didn't cover here, let me know. I'll do my best to answer. Next week I'll talk about... something else. I'm not sure yet. I'm getting closer to my departure date (which is kind of still up in the air at the moment), still raising money (help me out?) and getting things together (which will result in more preparation blog posts).

Any questions? Comments? Let me know. Thank you for reading!

What I'll Miss: Part 1

It seems fitting to have this blog post on the week of Thanksgiving.  You could say that this post mentions some of the things I am grateful for. They are also the things I'm going to miss while I am in Korea. I look forward to the experiences this new adventure has in store for me, but these are the things that will make me homesick.

1. My family

I've never been this far from family. Ever. It's nice having family close by, but that's not possible while I'm in Korea. I can't just take a quick trip home for the weekend and I even have to figure out time differences before calling. I'm just glad that Skype makes it a little easier.

2. My friends

I really hope that I will be able to make some good friends while in Korea, but I'm definitely going to miss the awesome ones I have here. It might not be easy to find people in Korea who share my same strange interests, like my unnatural investment in the lives of fictional characters... Thank goodness for the Internet, right?

3. The holidays

Ok, so there are some holidays in common, but they don't celebrate in the same way. It's going to be great to see the differences, but at the same time I'm going to miss things like the family gatherings that typically happen.

4. Being in my "culture bubble"

This one will be a bittersweet departure. We can all live just fine experiencing a single culture for our entire lives because, well, it's our culture. It's comfortable. It's familiar. But, at the same time, there are so many possibilities when you step out of the bubble and into the unknown. I am sometimes more adventurous when I step into an unfamiliar situation. The stranger it is, the more comfortable I am because knowing that no one expects you to know what you're doing is somewhat freeing.

Or maybe I'm just strange that way...

So, that is the first installment of my "What I'll Miss" posts. Look forward to part 2 next week, where I'll be talking about one of the loves of my life -- food. Thank you for reading!

And Happy Thanksgiving!

Wanna know how I got these bruises?

I left on Wednesday to go east for a wedding. The wedding was lovely. I'm very happy for my sister and my new brother-in-law. I'm just not going to go into great detail about that in this blog post, mostly because it feels awkward talking about my sister's wedding on a blog.

It went well. They're officially married. The End.

This blog post is prompted by something else: bruises. I have a lot of them after this trip. On my legs, on my arm and on my upper back. I can't remember how I got one of my bruises, but I do recall how the other ones came about.

Don't worry. I didn't get the bruises from the wedding or the wedding reception. I went to Saint Louis's City Museum, which is much like a jungle gym on steroids and museum wrapped into one. We did this they day before the wedding, and it was a blast... even if I did end up with bruised knees and lost my chapstick somewhere in the man-made caves.

I didn't take that many pictures, because I was too busy climbing and slipping into narrow spaces that only my 5'2'' frame could fit, but it was an experience. The first crawl space I came across upon entering made me feel claustrophobic. My brain kept telling me I wouldn't be able to fit in there. I'd get stuck and they'd have to call for someone to pull me out, or chisel away the walls.

So, I skipped the first crevice I saw and opted for a passageway where two could pass each other, while standing, and with plenty of room to spare. It took me around the back of a water fixture, to the other side of a giant whale, which was the center feature of that level.

At this point I'm feeling a little underwhelmed by my safe trip around. My sister has already moved up to one of the levels between the levels, and shouts down to me. We've lost track of our mom and dad, but you soon realize that this is part of the experience of City Museum -- finding yourself utterly lost, but someone managing to make it back to where you started simply by going, "I wonder where this leads?"

Seeing my sister up in a higher level lead me to my first "I wonder where this leads?" moment. I found an opening within some twisted branches that reminded me of a giant nest, and I went for it. Next thing I know, I'm crawling through spaces that I never thought I'd go and climbing through tubes of wire like I've been doing it for years.

I came across a guy while climbing through two gutted out planes and he said, "You've done this before, haven't you."

Nope. Just bringing out my inner monkey. Just remembering that up until about age 9 or 10, I climbed trees and crawled through tunnels all the time.

I need a place like this at home. Arrows show most of my trip around the outside of City Museum.

And then I went down that slide right there. Best slide I went on. 

I have to be honest. I wasn't sure if I'd enjoy the climbing and the crawling part of this place. I kept thinking that I was too out of shape, I hadn't done anything like this for a while, I was going to have a panic attack and end up stuck somewhere where they wouldn't be able to get me out...

I had a lot of fun, though, and wish that I'd had more time to explore. I am definitely going back there some day. If anyone happens to know of places similar to this elsewhere, let me know. After this experience, I'm considering taking up climbing. Maybe not cliff climbing, but rock-wall climbing.

Baby steps.

Enjoy some more picture:

You can get to that dome on the other side.